The present invention is directed generally to separation of immiscible liquids and is particularly useful on ocean vessels for treating contaminated water to remove oils and other hydrocarbon based contaminants.
As concern over the environmental quality of the world""s oceans continues to grow, environmentalists"" attention is increasingly focusing on the widespread practice within the maritime industry of dumping polluted bilge water overboard. While many countries attempt to protect against such practices by the threat of criminal penalties and fines amounting to millions of dollars, such deterrence measures are difficult to enforce and are often easily avoided by operators who travel in and out of regulated waters. Unfortunately, pumping polluted water overboard is simpler and less expensive than either cleaning the water prior to pumping overboard or holding the polluted water until arriving in port where it can be pumped to a land based water treatment facility. As a result, pumping the polluted water overboard in unprotected waters is a daily occurrence accounting for millions of gallons of polluted water being dumped into the world""s oceans every year. Many land based operations also produce polluted aqueous mixtures that can have a negative environmental impact. Like the bilge water that accumulates within a ship""s hull, these land based operations often produce large quantities of water contaminated with oil, fuel, and other hydrocarbon based waste.
Physical separation systems exist which can treat the water at varying levels of effectiveness and efficiency. For example, API separators, inclined separators, and weir separators can all be used to separate out some of the oils and other immiscible liquids in a supply of contaminated water. However, these systems cannot effectively remove the finer droplets of oils nor oils having a relatively neutral buoyancy. Consequently, these systems are not suitable for shipboard use since they do not produce treated water that is sufficiently clean to return to the ocean. While finer filtration elements or chemical treatments can be used to handle the smaller oil droplets, such added components can be expensive and more labor intensive to maintain. Accordingly, there exists a need for a system that can be used to decontaminate polluted water in a manner which reduces or eliminates the incentive for operators to simply dump the polluted water into the environment. Also, there exists a need for a system that can be remotely monitored and controlled in a manner that can be relied upon by governmental regulators and insurance carriers as insuring the environmental integrity of the operator""s ship or land-based facility. Further-more, apart from the treatment of contaminated water, there exists a need more generally for a system that can separate any immiscible liquids (i.e., two or more liquids that do not form a homogeneous solution when mixed).
In accordance with the invention there is provided a system for use on an ocean vessel to process contaminated water and transmit related data to a remote facility. The invention includes a separation system, data acquisition interface, and communication unit. The separation system includes a pump and a housing that has an inlet and first and second outlets, with the pump being coupled to the housing to provide a flow of contaminated water through the housing from the inlet to the first outlet. The separation system is operable to process contaminated water flowing through the housing and supply separated contaminants to the second outlet. The data acquisition interface is coupled to the separation system and is operable to acquire data relating to processing of the contaminated water by the separation system. The communication unit is coupled to the interface to receive the data acquired by the interface. The communication unit includes an antenna and is operable to provide wireless transmission of the data to a remote facility via the antenna. Preferably, the interface can also utilize commands received by the communication system to permit remote control of the separation system. The system is particularly useful in treating and remotely monitoring ship bilge and ballast water contaminated with oil and other such hydrocarbon based liquids.